Always a Body to Trade

Mario Balzic Detective Mystery #6

by K.C. Constantine

There’s a double robbery in two identical apartments, rented but hardly ever used by a Pittsburg drug dealer who’s clean with the law. A young woman is found shot dead on the street. She can’t be identified, but her murder has all the appearances of a professional hit. The mayor is near hysteria, and he smears the case all over Balzic, who not only has to solve the murder but teach his nosy new boss the not-so-plain facts of police work.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime

236 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1983

About the author

Carl Constantine Kosak is an American mystery author known for his work as K.C. Constantine. Little is known about Kosak, as he prefers anonymity and has given only a few interviews. He was born in 1934 and served in the Marines in the early 1950s. He lives in Greensburg PA with wife Linda.



http://www.badattitudes.com/KCCintvw....

Reviews

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mario Balzic is under siege from a new mayor who does not know how the system works. A case develops that gives Mario a chance to school the mayor, but Mario ends up getting schooled in the process. Comedy and tragedy provide insight into local life and the way of the world.

I am really glad the author included the scene where Mario gets appropriately called out for his "choice of words." The rough language keeps this series grounded, but it is hard to accept the words coming from our hero's mouth.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#6 in the Mario Balzic / Rocksburg, PA series.

Mario Balzic, police chief of Rocksburg, PA, is faced with the murder of an unknown woman who had accompanied two men in the kidnapping of a drug dealer. The case turns out to have connections to crooked State Drug Enforcement Agents. Complicating things are the interference of a new mayor and the "help" of a local preacher / road house running mobster.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am continuing on my quixotic and perhaps ill-advised Mario Balzic journey. Book 6 takes a leap in quality, in terms of plotting. The lead character remains a drunk who bends the law to get the bad guys. There are some interesting conversational digressions worthy of a Tarantino movie, and the new character of a naive mayor adds some humor. The author's heavy use of ethnic slurs of all types is apparently intended to lend some realism, but it often seems unnecessary, but at least there's one scene where the police chief is upbraided for using one. The writer has a breezy style and creates a sense of place -- roughly a small town in western Pennsylvania -- that rings true to my own memories of working as a journalist in small-town Pa. in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But time has not been kind to the way things were. It's a police procedural, not a mystery; the story is about how Balzic lands the case. It ain't pretty.

[John Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A top-drawer entry in the Mario Balzic series that finds Mario simultaneously investigating the murder of a Jane Doe by some corrupt drug cops and schooling the newly elected (and apparently ineducable) mayor in how the criminal justice system is really like potted meat product. Brutally tough with nary a shot fired and barely a punch thrown.

[Ezra plt · Rating 2 out of 5]

to be continued

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: there's a new Mayor in Rocksburg and Chief Balzic fields his calls. Mostly they're about robbery, murder, and drugs.

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

#6 in the Police Chief Mario Balzic of Rocksburg, PA mystery series. This mystery shows the "ugly" side of police work as Balzic uses a variety of somewhat shady ways to bring charges against two dirty state police agents.

Not much of a mystery in that you know the bad guys from the start. The plot focuses upon the various methods Balzic uses to obtain evidence and gain witnesses to support it.